The Unusual Possession of Alastair Stubb

by David John Griffin

  Stubb had been sleeping lightly. He awoke with a start to find the afternoon sun had slunk below the horizon, leaving the full disc of a moon glowing with a bright light. It had begun to snow again. He fumbled for a match to light a candle then from its glow, reached for his bedside clock. It was seven-thirty.

  He pulled on some clothes then walked the corridor to the main stairs, all the while suspiciously eyeing closed doors and unlighted corners. He would not want to meet Theodore. It was going to be uncomfortable enough speaking to Eleanor again. To the six months of his solitary existence, he had added still another two weeks of hurtful glances and refusals to discuss matters concerning the child. Though to achieve this, he had resumed a cryptozoic existence, sleeping during daylight hours, and pacing the house or roaming the quiet and dark lanes of the village during the night.

  He had grown to enjoy the darkness. The humming wind and the empty streets and lanes, the countryside asleep under its blankets of moonlit snow, and the whooping owl or barking dog were all parts of the whole: the beauty of the night. Clumping upon snow-compacted cobblestones or trudging over snowdrifts, he had the opportunity to think on his circumstances, and there in those cold and vacant places he realized, even after all that had passed, to be without his wife would be empty and meaningless.

  As was her habit on Thursday evenings, Eleanor sat at the kitchen table to read the latest edition of The Grinding & Smudge Recorder.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Stubb softly as he entered.

  For a moment, he thought there would be no reply, until she looked up from her newspaper, and said, ‘You are William.’

  Stubb inspected the gentle structure of her face both with affection and concern. ‘How have you been?’ She shrugged. ‘I wish we could be friends,’ he said.

  An unexpected yearning washed over him and as though Eleanor had read his thoughts, she rose from her wooden chair by the plate cupboard and rack of saucepans, and went to him. Stubb put his arms about her waist and they kissed. Her lips tasted of rosehip tea. For him, the kiss was an unusual sensation, having been deprived of this simple pleasure for so long.

  ‘What can be done?’ asked Eleanor plaintively. She parted from him. ‘Do you want me to get rid of—?’ Her sorrowful eyes dropped to the mound she carried.

  They sat, facing each other across the pine table.

  Eleanor’s taut features softened and she gently smiled so as to break the beginning of a flow of tears.

  ‘I want to keep him, insect legs or proper legs,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I want us to have the child too,’ Stubb replied, ‘but on one condition.’

  Eleanor gave a short laugh as the elation of the moment overtook. ‘Anything to keep my baby. We have wanted Alastair back for so long, and he could be like a human being again. I’m going to Martha May’s Wool Shop tomorrow and start knitting right away. Not long now, two months more. Tell me the condition, William, it can’t be much.’ Her delighted face had cracked the mask of grief she had been wearing for so long. ‘Can it?’ she said, her voice tinted with laughter.

  Stubb’s eyelids fluttered involuntarily. He fiddled with a cup handle. ‘The condition is you agree we get rid of my father.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that we kill him.’

  She let out a shriek and turned away as though afraid to look at her husband. A pause before she said, ‘You can’t mean it. Stoop that low to murder? Never!’ She thumped the table with the outstretched palm of a hand.

  Stubb examined her expression, gaining distinct evidence that she feigned shock. Still he continued, ‘The only way out. Think, this will become our house, with our servants, and we’ll regain the complete happiness we deserve.’

  Silence while Eleanor’s disposition seemed to reflect some inner conflict.

  Scratching sounds from over by one of the snow-rimmed panes of the kitchen window; Stubb ignored them.

  Finally, Eleanor spoke again. ‘Yes, you’re right. Together, as it used to be. You and I, with our lost Alastair, now found. Agreed.’ She nodded sagely and her alluring eyes were alight as she gazed about the kitchen as if she already owned it. ‘How do you propose to destroy him?’

  ‘Poison,’ said Stubb, the method dropping into mind from nowhere.

  ‘Will it be painful?’ Eleanor said, as if enquiring the price of a shop item.

  ‘Not much,’ he lied. ‘A quick and peaceful death, I reckon.’

  ‘I hope not. I hope he suffers; hope he screams in agony. The pain should be too much for him to bear. I hate him, the cockroach!’

  Stubb was taken aback by her vehemence. ‘Is there something else?’ he mumbled, his tongue suddenly losing the ability to make words properly. ‘More you’ve not told me?’

  Another vague sound from the direction of the window.

  Without effort, another hidden fragment of Eleanor’s memory illuminated. ‘Dreadfully sorry, quite forgot to tell you about his stinking breath and what he whispered before he swung the watch.’ She sniffed. ‘Alright, there is one thing more. It came back to me recently. He…’

  The back door rattled and swung open, singing on its hinges, Brood stepping into the kitchen from the cold garden.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ roared Stubb.

  ‘The master lets me come for my nightcap,’ Brood said. ‘A bit earlier than usual, you.’

  ‘Never mind your impudence. Have you been listening to our conversation? If so, there’s going to be trouble, do you hear? Now go back to your poky shed.’

  Brood snorted. ‘The master lets me…’

  Stubb was glaring at the gardener. ‘Get out.’

  ‘The master…’

  ‘You obstinate oaf. Well, if you aren’t going, we will. Come along, Eleanor.’

  She carefully replaced the few strands of hair which had strayed onto her cheek while staring hard over to her husband – an attempt to transmit some silent message.

  ‘No, William, my gardener and I are fine.’

  Stubb growled but knew not to press the matter; he realized her intentions. He and Brood disliked each other. For him to find out how much the gardener had overheard would be a fruitless task. Stubb hurriedly left the kitchen without speaking further, turning only to give Brood a look of disgust.

  The gardener remained standing by the open doorway smacking his gloved hands together – cold air invading the kitchen – looking to Eleanor without expression. Still it was snowing; spots of white were melting from his dark overcoat, dripping to the tiled floor, joined by more droplets falling from the brim of his battered black hat.

  ‘Close the door, for goodness sake. The talking wind is quite bitter tonight,’ said Eleanor abruptly, tugging at her shawl.

  Brood did as he was asked and after, stepped back onto the same spot he had previously occupied. ‘Evening, Miss,’ he said. It seemed an inappropriate time to greet her and, for that reason, Eleanor pretended not to have heard by intently examining her newspaper. ‘Evening, Miss,’ Brood repeated.

  Eleanor looked up to glare at him, wondering if this servant was stupid. She gave a clipped reply then began preparing to ask him how much he had overheard.

  Brood brushed away a trickle of water that ran down one of the creases in his cheek. A polluted puddle had formed around his leather boots. ‘Not a nice night, Miss. Cold. I hate the cold, can’t stand it, see. A cold, cold night. All the washing stiff in the morning.’ He grinned, exposing his crooked and yellowing teeth. Leaden eyes, normally dull and devoid of gaiety, glistened while a streak of watery fluid leaked from his nose. His sight dropped to the curve of Eleanor’s bloated womb, his blistered lips curling oddly. She caught the leer and pulled the chair she sat upon further under the table to hide herself. ‘Looking tired, Miss,’ he said and taking a glove off, lethargically scratched the warts that grew in profusion on the back of his hand. He sneered. ‘Winter, takes it out of us; can’t get warm, see. Worrying, getting cold in your bed, you.’

  Why cou
ldn’t this abominable man go? She had to ask the question first though, but before she could speak, Brood persisted. ‘If you ever need extra warming—’ Eleanor’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The impudence! ‘You can always—’ don’t say anything, it would only promote an argument, ‘get more blankets from Florence. I’ll drop her a word, Miss.’

  Eleanor shrieked the gardener’s name in frustration at listening to his continual insinuations. ‘I am trying to read this thing – this newspaper. Stop your talking, I would be most grateful.’ She heaved a sigh, her heart thumping heavily.

  ‘Reading, yes, I can see that, Miss.’ He wiped a drop of water, fallen from his hat, from the tip of his nose. Another droplet followed and he ignored it. ‘Seen the master lately?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Nothing, only,’ he sucked air between his teeth, ‘I want a few words with Mr. Theodore, that’s all.’

  She was beginning to think that he had heard all of the conversation with her husband. ‘Get your tea or whatever and be quick about it,’ she demanded. She closed her tired eyes and felt herself sway. Her heart now seemed to have left her chest and taken residence in her throat. ‘Do that; now.’

  ‘Alright, Miss.’

  ‘I am Queen – Mrs. Stubb, do you hear me?’ Her eyelids sprang open, eyes stabbing at the gardener. There was no visible effect.

  Brood went to the kettle and clutching it in his large hand, proceeded to fill it from the hand pump which stood in a corner, in preference to the taps over the sink, those installed with the new plumbing system a few years before.

  Eleanor was in the grip of panic. Concentration had started to waiver. The beginning of dreaminess, as though the whole of the kitchen – with its stove, pantry and copper skillets – was becoming insubstantial, as if one could pass a hand through it all as if a phantom projection. Only Brood seemed to hold his solidity; a finished, moving, dark sculpture within the sketch about him. She closed her eyes once more to dismiss these unsettling visual fallacies.

  Quickly, Brood stepped over from her right to immediately behind. She twitched in surprise as his body weight, on his hands pushing down, weighed on the back of her chair, tipping it slightly. Her every muscle had become tensed while she attempted to see him without turning her head.

  The gardener spoke softly and slowly with a syrupy whine. ‘Now if you’re unhappy – and I’m not saying you are, Miss – but let’s say you was and help was required, don’t be afraid to ask.’ He licked the saliva that was about to dribble down his chin back into his unsightly mouth.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Any unhappiness, and you needed some help, you can rely on me. Always willing…’ he infuriated Eleanor with his long pauses, ‘to give you… you know, assistance.’

  Glancing at dirty marks on the stone floor left by his boots, she said, ‘So you can help, can you?’ The remark had meant to sound casual but had become thin and whiney. Her face was chalk-white; dizziness overtaking. The kitchen had become superficial.

  Brood went to the stove and placed the kettle on the hob and then turned to Eleanor, his grating voice forming an invisible band of metal across her forehead the more he spoke.

  He said, ‘Must do something about those rats. Shed’s infested with the blighters. Saw another one last night, biggest I’ve ever seen, almost as big as a cat; and it had bloodshot eyes, and long fur, and teeth you could saw wood with. Having a nibble at my biscuits. Soon put a stop to that. Crept up behind it, and wham!’ Eleanor jumped to her feet and spun around to face him. ‘I belted it with a spade. Squashed flat, it was, innards all over the floor.’ He spoke then in hushed tones as though passing on confidential information.

  Eleanor inclined her head and leant forward so that every syllable he spoke would be heard. Brood’s tongue clicked before he added, ‘Of course, did that to all of ‘em, there’d be a right mess. Blood and gore everywhere. Think of the smell in my shed. Has to be a better way.’ He spoke his next sentence clearly, enunciating each word with rare precision. ‘What’s needed – for the problem – is – rat poison. Outside my shed.’

  Eleanor swallowed nervously. ‘Goodnight, Brood.’ She walked wearily to the kitchen door leading to the lobby, clutching her swollen belly as if it might drop.

  ‘Nightie night, Miss,’ Brood answered with a grin.

  Eleanor met the maid in the hallway. ‘Real Florence, have you seen my husband?’

  ‘Are you alright, Mrs. Stubb? You don’t look very well.’

  ‘I’m fine. Where is he?’

  ‘He did say he was going to The Bulldog Fish, madam.’

  After thanking the maid, with her whole body weighed with tiredness and her mind disoriented, Eleanor trudged up the stairs. She needed her bed early that cold evening.

  CHAPTER 9

  Rat Poison

  THE FOLLOWING CHILL morning, Eleanor had returned from the village shops in a content mood. She opened the gate at the side of the snow-spattered manor house.

  Remembering her conversation with Brood the evening before, she hurried over the whiteness of the garden away from the house. After glancing up at the graceful marble statue holding a small pillow of snow, she found her way to the gardener’s shed, snow-laden branches of the lilac bushes trying their best to disguise it.

  Despite the cool sun being swaddled with gunmetal grey clouds, a tin can beside the battered door of the shed glinted in the bleached air. It stood on sheets of newspaper. Although a snowfall had ceased only twenty minutes before, both can and paper were dry. A symbol printed on the tin can’s label, seen as an acorn perched upon crossed swords, was suddenly translated into its actual image of a skull and crossbones. Eleanor pulled her scarf tighter about her neck and marched briskly away and back over to the manor house that stood starkly against the plain sky.

  She stamped her booted feet onto a metal grating in front of the kitchen door. When inside, warmth in the kitchen ate the chilliness from about her. The smell of roasting meat: she was keen to peek inside the oven but decided she must change into dry clothes first; snow had found its way into her overboots and thick coat. She went to the scullery and deposited those articles into a cupboard before going up to her bedroom.

  Stubb was asleep in their four-poster bed, an extra woollen blanket covering him. She smiled. It was nice to have him back with her. One by one the loose ends of her marriage were being untangled and made fast. And soon Alastair would be cradled in her arms. Eleanor was convinced of her future loving delight, no matter how many legs the child possessed. Not long for everything to be as it used to be.

  She crept about the room so as not to awaken her husband but as she passed the side of the bed an arm shot out and gripped her wrist. ‘I thought you were asleep,’ Eleanor said and she gave a coquettish laugh.

  ‘Lightly dozing really; trying to keep warm,’ Stubb answered. There was a moment of quietness until he continued, ‘It’s good to see you content again. You’re looking lovely, even if you have forgotten to take your scarf off.’ Eleanor looked coy but then grinned while untying the headscarf knot from under her chin. A sudden movement from within her womb but she ignored it.

  ‘Been visiting Mrs. Crowpack?’

  ‘Not today – I felt like a walk; such a fresh, alive morning.’

  Stubb nodded but then his brow creased. ‘I felt guilty leaving you with Brood last night; did you find out if he overheard?’

  ‘Yes, all of it, I’m certain. Or at least, enough to suggest we use rat poison. That servant man gives me the shivers.’

  ‘But of course. Why not? I’ve read about that sort of thing. By administering doses over a period of weeks into food, small enough not to spoil the flavour, the victim gradually deteriorates day by day. Later on, he might catch on to what’s happening, by which time he’s too ill and weak to do anything. The person simply fades away.’ Stubb’s eyes glazed over as he pondered.

  ‘Yes, fading; I knew your father hasn’t been real, all along.
You don’t mind our gardener knowing?’

  ‘Why should I? When we’ve got the house, I’ll sell all of Theodore’s junk from the attic and then Brood can live there instead of that stinking shed; perhaps more wages. He’s no fool, Eleanor. He knows the advantages; he’ll keep his mouth shut.’

  They both fell silent. The clock beside the bed ticked its monotone, marking the seconds until Stubb enquired casually, ‘What were you about to tell me yesterday before we were interrupted?’

  His wife’s face became a shade darker. ‘Don’t know. Couldn’t have been important.’

  ‘Come now, I need to know what else my father spoke about that’s such a great secret.’

  Eleanor sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Alright, I will say,’ she began. ‘It is such a great secret. I’m sure you didn’t want to know how much your phantom of a father hates you. Before the insect beast hypnotized me – so you say happened – he gave me a proposition. He asked if I would marry him.’

  Stubb laughed and wrinkled the top of his stumpy nose. ‘Is that all? Should have guessed the old man is losing his marbles. How can he marry you when we are married?’

  Her words were clipped. ‘That’s the whole point. He wants to marry me after your death. He wants to kill you, William. It’s almost funny if it wasn’t so tragic; both of you want to kill each other.’

  Stubb gritted his teeth. His father’s death would be painful, he would make sure of that. ‘Brood keeps rat poison in his shed.

  On a shelf somewhere at the back.’